Expensive months

As probably everyone knows, December is one of the most expensive months in the year. Christmas says it all. It is about dining and drinking (lots and lots of both) and spending money on gifts. Besides that there's also New Year's Eve with lots and lots of firework (and drinking?) which makes the month December even more expensive. On top of that we have another celebration in the Netherlands in December, called Sinterklaas. It is similar to the famous Santa Claus, which by the way we also celebrate). Sinterklaas is also about giving presents and lots of candies to each other (meaning spending lots of money AGAIN!).

Besides all of these, a lot of singers are releasing their new records during the last three months of the year. Of course I can not resist buying them all immediatly. Luckily I found out that Play.com is selling CDs for a very reasonable price compared to other internet sellers as you pay no shipping costs at all. Anyway here are some CDs that I recently bought and that are really worth the money:

Sugababes - Catfights & Spotlights
At first I wasn't really sure what to think about this since it is different from their previous records, though some songs of their last record Change come close. The lead single "Girls", which samples the famous track "Here Come The Girls" I think is a great track. Quite surprisingly it wasn't a no.1 hit in the UK Singles Chart as it only reached no. 3. The new album features a lot of ballad style songs which I must say is nice for a change. I can still remember the babes releasing "Stronger" a few years ago which had a huge impact on the charts. Unfortunately after ballads like "Too Lost In You" & "Caught in A Moment" it was all about the up- or midtempo tracks. A lot of songs on Catfights & Spotlights are recorded big warm ballad style making this new album great to listen to in dark winter times.

Sonja Aldén - Under Mitt Tak
I have always been a fan of Swedish music, which explains the posting about Melodifestivalen. Sonja Aldén is one of many Swedish artists who have been performing at this music festival. Sonja was born in St. Albans, United Kingdom, a town which I happened to visit in August this year though I did not know at that time that Sonja was born there. In 2006 she performed at Melodifestivalen for the first time with a great uptempo track followed by a ballad in 2007. The album she then released wasn't appealing enough for me. Last month however she released her second CD "Under Mitt Tak" with some amazing uptempo and ballad tracks. All is sung in Swedish of course, but what does it matter when the melodies are great?

Will Young - Let It Go
Never been really into Will to be honest. I must say Switch It On and Your Game are great tracks (only discovered those a few months ago) and his 3rd album Keep On has some good songs. But those are nothing compared to his latest release Let It Go. The first single Changes is a great track which failed a bit in making a big impact on the charts. Strangly it was voted no.1 on London's Capital 95.8 FM's London 10 Most Wanted for several weeks. Hopefully his second single Grace will do better. It has an amazing melody and great lyrics. There also is a Freemasons produced track on the album ("I Won't Give Up") and a very cool over-6-min track called "Love". Great album to listen to, but no good for dancing.

These records are only 3 of probably 10 I bought this month and there are still some cool ones being released over the next few weeks. I will have to make sure that I make enough hours at work to pay for all these extra costs...

Anyway that's it for now. I've had some very busy days the last week so that would explain why I did not post at all. Hopefully there'll be more time this week.